Coercion versus Choice: Citizen Evaluations of Public Service Quality across Methods of Consumption

Coercion versus Choice: Citizen Evaluations of Public Service Quality across Methods ofConsumptionAuthor(s): Trevor BrownSource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 67, No. 3 (May - Jun., 2007), pp. 559-572Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4624597 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 08:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wiley and American Society for Public Administration are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to Public Administration Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.111 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:22:07 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aspa

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4624597?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Trevor Brown The Ohio State University

Coercion versus Choice: Citizen Evaluations of Public Service Quality across Methods of Consumption

Essays on Service Delivery and Privatization

Treating all respondents to citizen satisfaction surveys as "customers" risks misinterpreting the findings and mis-

guiding managerial decision making. Citizen evaluations

of the quality ofpublic services are likely to vary based on whether citizens have a direct or indirect relationship to the service. Furthermore, citizens are likely to rate services

differently based on whether they consume the services as a result of coercion or choice, although the quality of the interaction shapes the impact of the type of interaction. Based on a series of empirical analyses, this paper demon- strates that recipients who have superior-quality interactions with providers are likely to report high ratings for elective services, whereas citizens who have poor-quality interactions are likely to report low ratings for coercive services. In this way, the quality of the interaction influences citizens'predispositions to rate services high or low based on whether they consume the service by choice or coercion.

Under rising pressure to be more accountable to their constituents, public managers at all levels have turned to measures of citizen

satisfaction with public services to gauge performance (Swindell and Kelly 2000). Furthermore, citizen assessments of service quality have increasingly become

important factors in key public decision-making processes (Glaser and Bardo 1994; Watson, Juster, and

Johnson 1991). To best use this performance informa-

tion, public managers would be wise to differentiate

among citizens based on the types of interactions they have with public service providers. Citizens who have direct interactions with a public service provider are

likely to evaluate service quality differently than citizens who benefit from services indirectly. Further-

more, not all citizens who have direct service interactions are alike. Some direct public service re-

cipients are "customers," choosing among an array of

alternatives; others are "clients," dependent on a single service provider; and still others are "captives," coerced into a service interaction (Hyde 1991). Focusing on the extremes, customers, because they choose to enter into a service interaction, are likely to be more satisfied with service quality than captives, who may

bristle at the exercise of coercion by the government. The exercise of free will when consuming a service

predisposes recipients to evaluate service quality more positively than recipients who are compelled into a service interaction.

Public managers often have little influence over the

type of interactions they have with citizens. They cannot, for example, change by administrative fiat the coercive nature of enforcing parking violations. How- ever, they can take direct steps to influence the quality of the interaction between public employees and service recipients, regardless of the type of interaction.

Notably, public managers can train their employees to be courteous and professional. An emphasis on pro- viding high-quality service interactions may enhance or counter the impact of the type of service interaction. Captives, for example, may be even more trou- bled by the fact that they are compelled into a service interaction-and thereby more likely to rebuke public managers with lower satisfaction marks-if they find

public employees abusive and unprofessional. Alterna-

tively, captives may report higher satisfaction if public employees are well mannered, fair, and cooperative. The impact of the type of service interaction is conditioned by the quality of the interaction.

This paper uses data drawn from a 2002 survey of Columbus, Ohio, residents to assess the impact of the quality of the service interaction across different types of interactions with public service providers. The

paper focuses on three types of service interactions: (1) a customer service interaction-electing to partici- pate in city recreational programs; (2) a client service

interaction-calling the city because of a problem with refuse collection; and (3) a captive service

interaction-being stopped by the police. To determine the impact of the type and quality of the service interaction, the paper compares respondents who had direct interactions with respondents who had no direct interaction but were still affected indirectly by the service as members of the general public. Difference-of-means tests and ordered logit analyses

Trevor Brown is an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy and Manage- ment at The Ohio State University. His

teaching and research focuses on public management, performance measurement, organizational theory, and service delivery. E-mail: [email protected]

Coercion versus Choice 559



demonstrate that the quality of the service interaction influences evaluations of service quality, but the effect varies across the types of service interactions. In the results reported here, customers who reported superior- quality service interactions rated service quality higher than indirect service recipients, whereas captives who

reported poor-quality service interactions rated service

quality lower than indirect recipients.

The "customer" approach is limited in its application to

direct public service recipients because it captures only one

method of service consumption. In the private sector, service interactions are elective-

individuals choose to use a service.

This paper is divided into five sections. The first section explains the connection between the type and quality of service interaction and citizen evaluations of public service

quality. In addition, this section reviews the literature on other factors that have been found to influence evaluations of service

quality. The second section de- scribes the methodology and data

employed to examine the pur- ported relationships. The third section presents the results, and a fourth section discusses the find-

ings and implications for public managers. The

concluding section suggests how future research can address the shortcomings of the analyses presented here.

Types and Quality of Service Interactions and Citizen Evaluations of Service Quality The current orthodoxy in public management is for

public managers to treat service recipients as customers (e.g. Osborne and Gaebler 1992; Osborne and Plastrick 2000). This has fueled the increase in the use of citizen assessments of service quality, or customer satisfaction surveys (e.g., Kelly 2005). These instru- ments are designed to provide public managers insight into the services their customers want, how they want them delivered, and how much they are willing to pay for them. Yet not all recipients of public services are the same in terms of their relationship to the service

provider. Treating all respondents to these surveys as customers, in the classic private-market sense, risks

misinterpreting the findings and misguiding managerial decision making.

To begin, the customer approach presumes a direct contact between the service provider and the recipient. Yet for any public service, there are both direct and indirect recipients. Many public services are pure public goods (e.g., police patrols, beautification proj- ects) that affect the public at large indirectly while sometimes also engaging individual citizens directly. Both groups have a stake in service outcomes, either because they pay taxes to fund the service or because

they are directly affected by the service. Focusing exclusively on customers ignores the important im-

pacts that public services have on the general taxpaying

public (Moore 2002). Fortunately, the satisfaction literature acknowledges this important distinction and identifies important differences in terms of how these two categories of recipients evaluate public services

(Kelly and Swindell 2003; Licari, McLean, and Rice 2005). Whereas indirect recipients are more likely to determine their satisfaction based on the impact of the service (i.e., aggregate service outcomes), direct service

recipients make their assessments based, in part, on their interaction with the service provider (Kelly and

Swindell 2002a, 2002b).

The customer approach is limited in its application to direct public service recipients because it captures only one method of service

consumption. In the private sector, service interactions are elective-that is, individuals choose to use a service (e.g., get- ting a haircut). In this sense, recipients are customers, con-

suming a service of their own volition. In the public sector, this

is not always the case. Some service interactions are thrust upon citizens in the absence of choice (e.g., paying a fine). In these instances, service recipients are

captives, forced into a service interaction through coercion. Some service interactions lie between the extremes of coercion and free will-namely, when service recipients enter into an exclusive and binding relationship with the public provider with little influence over pricing but some voice in how the service is

provided (e.g., utilities). In that case, service recipients are clients (Hyde 1991).'

From the perspective of citizen evaluations of service

quality, direct recipients are likely to assess quality based on whether they are customers, clients, or captives. The exercise of free will predisposes respondents toward more positive evaluations, whereas the use of coercion creates bias in the opposite direction (e.g., Aizerman and Aleskerov 1995). However, the quality of the direct interaction may counter or enhance the

recipient's predisposition. This is where the demeanor and conduct of frontline employees influence assessments of service quality. The operative question in terms of theory building and the creation of useful

knowledge for public managers is to determine whether

employee professionalism (i.e., a superior-quality inter-

action) can trump the negative bias associated with

coercion, or alternatively, whether frontline employee abusiveness (i.e., a poor-quality interaction) significantly diminishes the positive bias associated with choice. If the goal is to improve evaluations of service

quality, public managers can make strategic decisions about when it is optimal to invest in customer-service

training. This section details these arguments and offers a set of testable propositions.

560 Public Administration Review * May | June 2007



Method of Service Consumption Public services are often categorized based on their modes of production, methods of distribution, and means of financing (e.g., Ostrom and Ostrom 1977; Stein 1990). Although there are reasons to believe

these service characteristics may influence evaluations of service quality (Marlowe 1985; T-hompson 1997), a

fourth, relatively unexplored characteristic is likely to have greater influence: the circumstances of consumption, whether by choice or coercion. The veneration of

competition is based on the belief that service recipients are happier when they are allowed to make choices (e.g., Osborne and Plastrick 2000). Part of the increased satisfaction resulting from choice is consum-

ers' ability to optimize their preference for the level and quality of a service against their willingness to

pay. Research in a variety of service areas-health care, education, vocational training-finds some support for this contention (Richard 2000; Schneider, Teske, and Marschall 2000; Ullman et al. 1997). For ex-

ample, Davis and Schoen (1997) found that employees who had a choice of health care plans were

significantly more satisfied with their plans, their

doctors, and the care they received than those who had no choice.

More fundamentally, an a priori predisposition toward

positive evaluations of service quality may derive from the consumer's ability to choose whether to use the service. The field of economics is premised on the

assumption that the exercise of choice maximizes individual and social welfare relative to the absence of choice (Arrow 1951; Becker 1976; Chipman et al.

1971; Houthakker 1950; Kreps 1988; Samuelson

1938, 1947; Sen 1971, 1973). Based on supportive evidence (Fitzsimmons 1995; Kahn, Moore, and Glazer 1987; Oliver and DeSarbo 1988), the notion that individuals prefer choice to no choice is an im-

portant foundation of the theory of consumer behavior (e.g., Howard and Sheth 1969; Mowen 1993).2

In the public arena, the situation is more complicated. There are obviously clear analogs to private consumption decisions. Some public recreational services are

primary examples of elective services-services that

many citizens choose to consume but are by no means

required to. Citizens sign up of their own free will to

enjoy recreational programs such as art, athletic, or music instruction, although in some cases, they pay a

fee to do so; they are not, however, mandated to do so. In fact, for many recreation services, there are

private-market alternatives (e.g., private music instruction). Presumably, the lessons from the private sector about how different factors influence satisfaction should apply to this class of public services as well.

But there is another class of services that is unique to the public sector-those over which the state exercises

authority to coerce citizens to engage or not engage in a particular activity (Moore 2002). On one hand are instances in which the government restricts the liberty of citizens to prevent them from harming others, whether the harm is unintentional (i.e., a negative externality) or intentional. For example, many locali- ties enact antidumping ordinances to prevent citizens from depositing their trash wherever they please. On the other hand, governments exercise coercive author-

ity over individuals to protect them from others or themselves, when it is judged that individuals left to their own devices may not act in their own best interest (Stiglitz 2000). For example, many states require drivers and passengers in automobiles to wear seat- belts and employ traffic stops by the police to enforce the policy.

In terms of the method of consumption, all direct interactions with public service providers sit somewhere between coercion and choice. Figure 1 displays this graphically with the manner of consumption running from coercion on the left to choice on the

right, and citizen satisfaction running from negative on the left to positive on the right. Captives are located on the left and customers on the right. Clients sit in the middle, as they are bound to consume a service from a single public provider, but they typically have some choice over other aspects of service

delivery (e.g., how the service is provided, how much

they want to consume, and sometimes how they want to pay for it). All things being equal, customers, because they act out of free will, enter into service interactions with a positive predisposition that likely extends to positive service-quality evaluations, whereas

captives, because they are coerced, enter into service interactions with a negative predisposition that likely extends to negative service-quality evaluations. Clients sit in the middle, pulled one way or the other based on whether coercion or choice is the dominant

instigator of consumption.

Coercion Method of Consumption Choice

Captives

.

Clients :- Customers ---

Negative Positive Citizen Satisfaction

Figure 1 The Impact of Method of Consumption on Citizen Evaluations of Service Quality




The Direct Service Experience and the Method of Consumption Public managers are limited in the degree to which they can alter the coercive or elective nature of the services they provide. The terms of consumption are often out of their hands. They can, however, influence the manner of delivery-or rather, the manners of the deliverers. By training their frontline employees to be civil, friendly, polite, and helpful, public managers may be able to affect service recipients' evaluations of service quality. Lipsky (1980) refers to this interaction between street- level bureaucrats and citizens as the "zone of control" because, in this arena, government employees have the most influence on the delivery of services to citizens. In these cases, the behavior and actions of government employees form the basis of the service experience; street-level bureaucrats shape expectations and determine the quality of treatment for service recipients. Consequently, the conduct of

government employees is likely to

play a role in citizen evaluations of

public service quality. For exam-

ple, the extensive literature on the interactions between police officers and citizens has found that citizens are least satisfied with policing services when officers are offensive, un-

professional, or slow to respond (Coupe and Griffiths 1999; Dean 1980; Furstenberg and Wellford 1973; Glauser and Tullar 1985; Poister and McDavid 1978; Skogan 1978; Smith and Hawkins 1973).

The results of policing studies are not surprising, as they confirm a fairly straightforward connection between the quality of the interaction and overall service

ratings. Good customer service should lead to positive service-quality evaluations, and bad customer service should result in negative evaluations. This is certainly the working assumption of recent reform movements such as total quality management and the New Public

Management (e.g., Osborne and Plastrick 2000). What these studies do not do is demonstrate how much the quality of the interaction makes a difference or under what circumstances. Though some studies have examined differential levels of satisfaction across services (e.g., Miller and Miller 1991), it is unknown whether the findings from policing studies hold for other types of services. The question for public man-

agers contemplating steps to improve customer service in their organizations is whether the quality of the service experience can influence the biases associated with coercion or choice. Can professional public employees make captives less upset about coercion? Alternatively, do unresponsive and impolite frontline

employees make captives even angrier about their lack of free will? Research needs to better determine how the direct service experience influences evaluations of service quality (Kelly and Swindell 2003).

Public managers are limited in the degree to which they can

alter the coercive or elective nature of the services they

provide. The terms of consumption are often out

of their hands.

Other Factors Any study of citizen evaluations of public services would be incomplete without incorporating several important intervening and control factors. First, most studies have found that individual demographic characteristics of citizens-age, race, income, and education-influence citizen evaluations (Brown and Coulter 1983; Reisig and Parks 2000; Schuman and Gruenberg 1972; Skogan 1978). For example, studies in policing have found that African American respondents tend to report lower levels of satisfaction than other racial groups (e.g., Cao, Frank, and Cullen 1996). Second, many studies have found that the context in which citizens live influences evaluations of public services and service outcomes (Christenson and

Taylor 1983; Mouritzen 1989;

Reisig and Parks 2000; Skogan 1978). One branch of this research has found that citizens who live in deprived social conditions or deteriorating phys- ical conditions-reflecting a

higher level of need for public services-are more likely than those living in better conditions to report negative evaluations

(e.g., Kusow, Wilson, and Martin 1997). Another branch has found that citizens who live in consoli- dated political jurisdictions are more likely to report positive evaluations of services than those who live in fragmented jurisdictions (see e.g., Lyons, Lowery, and

DeHoog 1992). Third, there is a long tradition of examining whether "objective" measures of service outcomes are related to citizen evaluations of service quality. The basic contention is that citizen evaluations of service quality will mirror other measures of the relevant outcome. For example, citizens will give high marks to the police if the overall crime rate is low. Many early studies have found only a weak connection between objective measures of service outcomes and evaluations of service quality (Brudney and England 1982; Parks 1984; Rich 1979; Stipak 1979, 1980). In addition, some research has found that citizens have difficulty even identifying the provider of the service, further weakening the link between objective outcomes and recipient evaluations (e.g., Van Slyke and Roch 2004). In spite of the absence of

statistically significant findings, Kelly and Swindell (2002a, 2002b; see also Swindell and Kelly 2000) argue that the logic connecting "objective" outcome measures and satisfaction remains sound, but im-

proved assessment tools are required. Finally, the

general attitudes, expectations, and dispositions of citizens also prove to be influential (Benson 1981; Michalos 1983). Brown and Coulter (1983) found that citizens' general attitudes about the efficacy of local government influence their satisfaction. Most recently, Van Ryzin (2004) has tapped the private market consumer-satisfaction literature to develop a




well-conceived model of how prior expectations influence satisfaction. This research argues that it is the gap between expectations and actual experience that influences satisfaction.

In sum, there are theoretical grounds on which to

expect that both the type and quality of the service interaction influence citizen evaluations of public service quality. The method of consumption predisposes citizens to be more or less satisfied based on whether citizens elect or are coerced to consume the service. Customers are likely to be happier than captives, and clients fall somewhere in between based on the degree of coercion or choice. In addition, the

quality of the service experience is likely to be positively related to evaluations of service quality. The

important empirical question is to determine whether one of these factors is dominant or whether both play important roles in impacting citizen evaluations of service quality.

Methodology and Data To test the impact of service interaction type and

quality, controlling for other important factors, I

analyze a large sample data set of citizen evaluations of the quality of public services in Columbus, Ohio. The

survey asked citizens to evaluate the quality of a vari-

ety of services, but here I focus on three-recreational

programs, police services, and refuse collection. I selected these services because the survey also asked

respondents about their direct interactions with public service providers for these services. Each service interaction sits at a different point along the continuum between coercion and choice. Participation in a city recreational program represents the elective service interaction. Here, respondents act as customers, choosing to consume the service of their own free will.

Respondents have other alternatives for how they can

spend their leisure hours, and in some instances, there are direct analogs in the private sector. Being pulled over by the police represents the coercive service interaction. Here, respondents act as captives, compelled into the service interaction. Finally, some respondents called the city regarding a refuse-collection problem. In these instances, respondents act as clients,

mandated to consume the service from a monopoly provider-the city-but with some discretion over the level of consumption (e.g., citizens can have mul-

tiple trash cans picked up, as well as yard waste and bulk items). These three service interactions provide a test of the propositions about the relationship between the method of consumption and the quality of the direct service interaction.

Data Sources The foundation of the analyses is a survey of Columbus, Ohio, residents. The survey was based on

telephone interviews with 1,188 randomly selected adults from throughout the city. Interviews were con- ducted from July 15 to August 19, 2002, by the Ohio State University Center for Survey Research. The aver-

age interview length was 26.5 minutes. Among those households for which interviewers actually spoke with the eligible adult respondent, interviews were com-

pleted in 83 percent of the cases. The sampling error for the survey was 2.8 percentage points in either direction.3 Table 1 reports the demographics of the sample by comparison to data from the 2000 U.S. Census.

Survey interviewers acquired address information from respondents to verify that households were actually within the city limits. As a result, survey responses could be linked to other data sets with geographic information. I linked two additional data sources for these analyses-tract-level data on community characteristics from the 2000 U.S. Census and precinct-level data on crime rates in 2001 from the Columbus

Department of Public Safety.

Dependent Variables The dependent variables assess citizen evaluations of service quality for different types of services. Survey respondents were asked to rate each of 17 services on a 10-point scale, where 1 means "very poor quality" and 10 means "very high quality." The analyses under- taken here utilize citizen evaluations of quality for three services-recreational programs, police services, and refuse collection. These variables are labeled recreation rating, police rating, and refuse-collection rating, respectively. The variable refuse-collection rating is an

Table 1 Comparison of 2002 Survey Respondents and 2000 Census Demographics

Demographic Survey Percent (Count) 2000 Census Percent

Gender Female 60.1% (714) 51.4% Male 39.9% (474) 48.6%

Education High school or higher 90.1% (1065) 83.8% College degree or higher 33.6% (397) 29.0%

Race White 63.9% (759) 67.9% Black 28.9% (343) 24.5% Other 7.2% (86) 7.6%




average across three refuse-collection services-weekly trash collection, weekly yard waste collection, and

weekly bulk item collection. An appendix reports the

questions from the Columbus survey used to construct these variables. To check the validity of these measures against other satisfaction measures, the

average rating across all respondents for each service was converted to a 100-point scale using a technique popularized by Miller and Miller (1991, 2000) for

comparing satisfaction results across communities and different question formulations. The scaled satisfaction measures for each of the three services from the Columbus survey are similar to the satisfaction measures from a data set of 12 cities compiled by Kelly and Swindell (2002a).

Independent Variables Four types of independent variables are included in the analyses. These include measures of service interaction quality, individual characteristics, community conditions, and other measures of service outcomes. Note that one category of potentially influential variables discussed earlier is not included-prior expectations of service quality. Although research suggests that such variables influence satisfaction, unfortu-

nately the Columbus survey did not include measures of these factors. In this regard, the statistical analyses are underspecified. This section discusses how the

independent variables were operationalized.

Quality of direct service interaction. To account for the method of consumption, three types of service interactions were analyzed-participation in recreational

programming (customer), police traffic stop (captive), and calling regarding refuse-collection problems (client). Several variables are included to measure the quality of these interactions; the appendix reports the exact wording of the questions used to construct these variables. For the recreational service interaction, sur-

vey respondents were asked whether they participated in seven different types of recreational programs. Then

respondents were asked to rate the quality of their

experience in each individual program in which they participated on the same 10-point scale described earlier. These scores were then averaged to construct a single rating for each respondent. The variable superior- quality recreation program is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the average rating across the recreational programs in which the respondent participated was greater than 5, otherwise 0. The variable poor-quality recreation program is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the average rating was less than or equal to 5, otherwise 0. The base comparison group comprises all respondents who did not indicate that they participated in recreational programs.

For policing services, respondents who indicated they had been stopped by the Columbus police-the coercive policing interaction-were asked whether they had been treated with fairness and courtesy. The variable superior-

quality police stop is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the respondent indicated that he or she had been treated with fairness and courtesy, otherwise 0. The variable poor- quality police stop is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the respondent indicated that he or she had not been treated with fairness and courtesy, otherwise 0. The base comparison group comprises all respondents who were not stopped by the police-the indirect service recipients.

For refuse collection, respondents who indicated that they had called the city about a problem were asked whether city personnel had treated them with fairness and courtesy. The variable superior-quality refuse call is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the respondent indicated that he or she had been treated with fairness and courtesy, otherwise 0. The variable poor-quality refuse call is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the respondent indicated that he or she had not been treated with fairness and courtesy, otherwise 0. The base comparison group comprises all respondents who did not call the city regarding a problem with their refuse collection.

For each service interaction, the expectation is that a

superior-quality service interaction will increase the likelihood of a positive service rating, whereas a poor- quality interaction should increase the likelihood of a lower service rating. However, the significance and size of the effect of these variables may vary based on the

type of interaction (i.e., the method of consumption).

Demographic characteristics. Five variables were operationalized to measure demographic characteristics. First, the variable African American is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the respondent was African American, otherwise 0. Second, the variable other minority is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the respondent indicated a racial category other than Caucasian or African Ameri- can, otherwise 0. Third, the variable male is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the respondent was male and 0 if the respondent was female. Fourth, the variable age is a continuous variable of the respondent's age in years. Fifth, the variable homeowner is a dummy variable, coded 1 if the respondent was a homeowner, otherwise

0.4 Based on previous satisfaction studies, African Americans, other minorities, males, and homeowners are likely to report lower levels of service quality than other respondents. On the other hand, older respondents are likely to report higher levels of service quality than younger respondents across all three services.

Community conditions and other measures of service outcomes. Three variables were operationalized to measure community conditions. The variable neigh- borhoodproblems is a summation of the number of seven different problems that respondents indicated were present in their neighborhoods (i.e., speeding, graffiti). The variable community heterogeneity is an average of the percentage of the population in the respondent's census tract that is below the poverty

564 Public Administration Review * May I June 2007



line, African American, living in a female-headed household, and living in a rental unit. Both of these variables are expected to be negatively related to rat-

ings of service quality. A third variable, Columbus

quality of life, measures respondents' evaluations of the quality of life in the city of Columbus on the same 10-point scale as the evaluations of service quality. The expectation is that this variable will be positively related to ratings of each service.5

Three other variables were operationalized to capture community conditions, and in some cases, to serve as another measure of service outcomes. A different variable was operationalized for each of the services. For recreation services, the variable city park satisfaction measures respondents' evaluations of the quality of city parks they have visited on a 10-point scale. This variable is potentially informative because most recreational programming takes place at a city park; research in consumer behavior suggests that the environment in which services are consumed plays an

important role in determining satisfaction of overall service quality (e.g., Samli 1998). The expectation is that this variable will be positively related to evaluations of recreational services. The variable crime rate

per 1,000 residents is the total number of Federal Bureau of Investigation Type I crime events in 2001

per 1,000 residents in the respondent's police precinct.6 These data were acquired from the Columbus Division of Police. Unlike the previous two measures, the expectation is that this variable will be negatively related to evaluations of police services. For weekly trash collection, the variable street cleanliness quality measures respondents' evaluations of the cleanliness of city streets on a 10-point scale. This variable may influence evaluations of trash collection because one dimension of refuse-collection quality is the degree to which streets are kept clean. The expectation is that this variable will be positively related to evaluations of refuse collection. Table 2 reports the descriptive and collinearity statistics for all the variables.

Given the finite range of the dependent variables, as well as the limited dispersion around the mean, ordered logit was used to evaluate the impact of service experience on citizen ratings of service quality across the types of service interactions. Ordered logit models the effect of a constellation of independent variables on the likelihood of a respondent selecting one category relative to the other categories-for example, giving a service a rating of 7 relative to the other nine possible choices. The analysis is complicated by the fact that the data were drawn from a sample survey and therefore were collected with an unequal probability of selection. Failure to account for the sampling design typically leads to underestimating standard errors and false-positive statistical test results. Consequently, design features of the sampling strategy must be incorporated into the statistical analysis. In

the case of the Columbus survey, data were sampled disproportionately across 12 service districts. In the

analyses presented here, results were weighted to take into account the number of adults and the number of

telephone lines in each household and adjusted for variations in the sample by weighting for area of resi- dence, gender, age, race, education, and whether any children under the age of 18 lived in the household. All estimation was done in STATA version 7 using the

svyset and svyologit commands.7 The next section re-

ports the results of these empirical analyses in detail.

Results In general, the empirical results confirm that the quality of interaction influences citizen satisfaction with

public services and that the effect varies by the type of interaction. In this case, a superior recreational program experience-the elective service interaction- increased the likelihood of higher ratings for recreational services, whereas a poor-quality police stop-the coercive service interaction-decreased the likelihood of higher ratings for police services. For the most part, the other variables were only occasionally significant, highlighting the consistent explanatory power of the type and quality of service interaction. Table 3 reports the mean ratings for each service by the type and quality of service interaction. Table 4

reports the ordered logit results.8 The remainder of this section references these tables to report the results.

Customer Interaction-Recreational Programs Citizens who had positive interactions with service

providers when they consumed recreational programs rated overall recreation services highly. According to table 3, though the mean recreational services rating for indirect service recipients-those who had no direct interaction with recreation employees-was 7.34, the mean rating for direct service recipients who had superior recreational programming interactions was 7.89.

Alternatively, unhappy customers came in just under 1 point lower than the mean for indirect recipients, at 6.42. Turning to the ordered logit results in table 4, when other important factors were taken into account, the first finding held-respondents who reported superior-quality recreation program experiences were more likely than indirect recipients to rate recreational services highly, all other factors being equal (p < .05). On the other hand, the variable poor-quality recreation

program was far from significant. In short, a superior- quality service interaction made customers more satisfied, whereas a poor-quality service interaction made customers equally satisfied as indirect recipients.

Captive Interaction-Police Stop Citizens who had a poor-quality interaction when they were pulled over by the police give low marks to police services. According to table 3, respondents who reported that the police had not treated them with fairness and respect rated police services more than 1.5




C -0

t-

o

0p

Table 2 Descriptive and Colinearity Statistics and Variable Operationalization

Variable Mean SD Min Max N la lb 1c 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Dependent variables

1 a. Recreation rating 7.53 1.96 1 10 803 (1-10 scaled rating)

lb. Police rating (1-10 scaled rating) 7.42 2.22 1 10 1075 Ic. Refuse-collection rating 7.52 1.96 1 10 1115

(1-10 scaled rating) Independent variables Service experience 2. Superior-quality recreation .36 .48 0 1 1136 .16 .11 .03 1

program (1, else 0) 3. Poor-quality recreation .04 .20 0 1 1136 -.13 -.11 -.09 -.21 1

program (1, else 0) 4. Superior-quality police .11 .32 0 1 1136 -.08 .01 -.04 .06 .06 1

stop (1, else 0) 5. Poor-quality police stop (1, else 0) .05 .21 0 1 1136 -.03 -.16 -.06 .01 -.00 -.09 1 6. Superior-quality refuse call .16 .37 0 1 1136 -.02 .01 -.08 .01 .06 .02 .02 1

(1, else 0) 7. Poor-quality refuse call .02 .12 0 1 1136 -.06 -.10 -.22 .08 -.03 -.02 .10 -.06 1 (1, else 0)

Individual characteristics 8. African American (1, else 0) .30 .46 0 1 1123 .04 -.02 .00 .06 .08 .03 .06 .02 -.02 1 9. Other minority (1, else 0) .06 .25 0 1 1123 -.02 .00 .01 -.01 -.01 .02 .02 .01 .01 -.19 1 10. Male (1, else 0) .40 .49 0 1 1136 -.10 -.01 -.00 -.01 -.02 .07 -.01 -.07 -.05 -.09 .11 1 11. Age (continuous in years) 43.53 17.67 18 93 1121 .13 .22 .21 -.06 .02 -.22 -.11 .05 -.01 .13 -.05 -.06 1 12. Homeowner (1, else 0) .53 .50 0 1 1136 -.07 .04 .04 .04 .03 -.06 .01 .16 .05 .01 -.09 -.01 .37 1

Community conditions and outcomes 13. Neighborhood problems 2.35 2.04 0 7 1136 -.08 -.14 -.25 .01 .06 .04 .03 .17 .04 .02 -.04 -.08 -.18 -.10 1

(0-7 count) 14. Columbus quality of life 7.62 1.54 1 10 1122 .29 .36 .37 .10 -.10 -.03 -.06 -.04 -.12 .01 .01 .03 .13 .01 -.22 1

(1-10 scaled rating) 15. Community heterogeneity 22.68 11.09 2.15 51.44 1136 -.02 -.02 -.07 .04 .06 .01 .06 .02 .02 .47 -.00 -.06 .00 -.21 .28 -.06 1

(avg. of four %)

16. City park satisfaction 7.62 1.75 1 10 1040 .60 .28 .34 .10 -.11 .00 -.05 -.03 -.09 .02 -.00 -.03 .10 -.06 -.08 .38 .00 1 (1-10 scaled rating)

17. Crime rate per 1,000 residents 95.20 73.02 .01 685.18 1136 -.02 -.01 -.12 .01 .03 .04 .00 .04 .01 .11 -.02 -.01 -.03 -.17 .25 -.00 .42 -.01 1 18. Street cleanliness quality 6.61 2.00 1 10 1133 .32 .33 .33 .06 -.06 -.06 -.04 -.05 -.09 .04 .07 .05 .12 .00 -.24 .44 .01 .38 .00 1

(1-10 scaled rating)



Table 3 Mean Ratings of Service Quality by Type and Quality of Service Interaction

Recreation Services Police Services Refuse-Collection Services

Indirect recipients 7.34(419) 7.55 (890) 7.64 (909) Direct recipients, superior interaction 7.89 (346) 7.25 (127) 7.13 (180) Direct recipients, poor interaction 6.42 (38) 5.79 (53) 4.89 (18)

Note: N sizes reported in parentheses. Difference-of-means tests indicate that there are statistically significant differences between means at the .001 level for each of the three services.

points lower than the mean rating for indirect service

recipients-5.79 compared to 7.55. Respondents who

reported that the police had treated them with fairness and respect rated police services just below the mean for indirect recipients (7.25). The results in table 4

provide further confirmation of this finding. A poor- quality police stop reduced the likelihood of a high rating for police services, all things being equal (p < .001). A superior-quality police stop had no

statistically significant effect. In short, a poor-quality service interaction made captives less satisfied, whereas a superior-quality customer service interaction made

captives about as equally satisfied as indirect recipients.

Client Interaction-Problems with Refuse Collection The findings from the client category are also interesting. According to table 3, respondents who were treated with fairness and courtesy (7.13) and those who were not (4.89) when calling the city regarding a problem with refuse collection rated service quality lower than the mean of 7.64 for indirect service recipients. When

controlling for other factors, the results in table 4 indicate that dissatisfaction with the quality of service when

calling regarding a problem decreased the likelihood of a high rating for weekly refuse collection (p < .001), whereas satisfaction with the quality of service interaction had no statistically significant impact.

Other Factors Only three other factors included in the ordered logit analyses reported in table4 had a consistently significant effect across all three services--age, gender, and ratings of

quality of life. Older respondents and respondents who rated Columbus's quality of life highly tended to rate all three services positively. Males tended to give lower marks than females. The service-specific context-outcome variables also produced interesting results. Respon- dents who rated city parks highly also rated recreational

programming highly. Similarly, respondents who rated street cleanliness highly also rated refuse collection highly. Interestingly, there was no statistically significant rela-

tionship between crime rates and evaluations of police services when controlling for other factors. This may be

Table 4 Ordered Logit Results for the Effect of Customer Service Quality and Other Independent Variables on Citizen Evaluations of Service Quality

Independent Variables Recreation Rating Police Rating Refuse-Collection Rating

Service experience Recreation satisfaction .401* - Recreation dissatisfaction .072 -

Superior-quality police stop - -.023

Poor-quality police stop - -.1.217*** -

Trash call satisfaction - -.122 Trash call dissatisfaction - - -2.322*** Individual demographics African American .041 .019 -.084 Other minority .243 -.229 -.005 Male -.499** -.464** -.280** Age .018*** .020*** .018*** Homeowner -.711*** -.199 -.162

Community context and outcomes Neighborhood problems -.003 -.039 -.106** Columbus quality of life .102 .393*** .346*** Community heterogeneity -.003 .014 -.002 City park satisfaction .711** --

Crime rate per 1,000 residents - .002 Street cleanliness quality -- .167***

F 20.24*** 8.97*** 16.26*** N (observations) 754 1030 1078 N (strata, service districts) 12 12 12

Note: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.




the result of multicollinearity because crime rate per 1, 000 residents was correlated with other variables in the

model, notably community heterogeneity (see table 2).

Discussion The results suggest that the impact of a direct service interaction varies across types of interactions. For elective service interactions, direct service recipients who had a superior-quality interaction gave high marks, on average, to recreation services. For coercive service interactions, direct recipients who found their interaction with police officers unpleasant gave low marks for police services.

One interpretation is that the positive feelings associated with choice are augmented by a superior-quality interaction, and the negative feelings associated with coercion are similarly enhanced when the service

experience is of poor quality. Service experience may have its most significant impact when it calls attention to the underlying degree of coercion or choice in the interaction. A superior-quality service interaction reinforces a customer's a priori inclination to rate the service positively because the customer can take pleasure in

making a successful choice. Alter-

natively, the effect of a poor- quality service experience has less

impact because the customer can elect to stop consuming the service. This is not to say that a

poor-quality interaction will not influence evaluation, but the

strongest effect may be for interactions that reinforce the satisfaction that derives from the elective nature of the interaction.

A superior-quality service interaction reinforces a

"customer's" a priori inclination to rate the service positively because the "customer" can take pleasure in making a

successful choice.

The same logic may apply to coercive services. The

quality of interaction most affects a captive's evaluation when it reinforces the underlying coercive nature of the interaction. A captive is most likely to be aware that he or she is being coerced when things go poorly, so a poor-quality service interaction augments the

negative bias. In these instances, captives are likely to be particularly dissatisfied because, unlike customers,

they cannot exit the interaction.

The client service interaction is also informative. The results are very similar to the case of coercive service interactions. One interpretation is that, in this

particular instance, the coercive dimension of the service interaction dominates the elective dimension

(i.e., the ability to select the level of consumption). Recipients who have a poor-quality customer service interaction may be particularly unhappy because they have no choice in seeking out an alternative service

provider; they have to use the services offered by the

city. Alternatively, the similarity between the client

and captive findings may not be driven by the method of consumption but may be attributable to the fact that respondents calling about a problem with trash collection are upset because service provision itself is of inferior quality-city employees failed to pick up their trash.

The findings have important implications for public managers. Training public employees to be professional and polite is a worthy investment for both coercive and elective services. However, there may be limits to

devoting resources to improving the quality of service interactions. For elective interactions, the results suggest that a superior-quality experience improves recipient satisfaction, but not by a substantively large amount.

Similarly, the slippage in satisfaction that results from a

poor-quality experience is small. This is not to suggest that the demeanor of public employees is not important but that recipients are not as attentive or susceptible to this factor as they are under other circumstances-notably, when service interactions restrict their liberty. The results for both captive and client interactions suggest that the conduct of public employees in these circumstances plays

a significant role in shaping service evaluations. For example, citizens who reported that they had been treated unfairly and discourteously during a coercive traffic stop slammed the police when given the

opportunity to rate them. If any- thing, the results probably under- estimate the extent of this effect, as

respondents may not always be

forthcoming for fear of reprisal. Under circumstances in which

citizens are typically distressed about restrictions on their

liberty, public employees who cross the line into objec- tionable or even abusive behavior drive citizens to be even more upset about the restriction of their liberty. Alterna-

tively, although the variable included in the logit analysis was not significant, the difference-of-means tests suggest that public employees who are professional and respectful can considerably minimize the negative bias associated with coercion. In short, superior-quality customer service

may not win police departments any supporters as they issue traffic tickets and execute searches, but it may reduce the chances of creating detractors.

Policing is not the only service to which these lessons

apply. There are other instances when governments coerce citizens to undertake actions they may prefer not to-motor vehicle licensing and registration, tax and fee payments for mandated services such as refuse

collection, and building permit applications, to name a few. These often unpleasant interactions with public servants become fodder for bureaucracy bashers, whether they are politicians, activists, or comedians. Coercion in and of itself is unpleasant, but the

application of coercion does not have to be.




Conclusion The combination of direct service experience and the method of consumption influences service evaluations. In the interactions analyzed here, happy consumers of recreational programs rated recreation services highly, whereas citizens offended by the quality of treatment they received during a police stop gave low marks to police services. These effects were

stronger than the effect of the opposite service experience in both instances, and the findings held when other important variables were controlled for. How- ever, both the model developed here and the empirical test of the model are incomplete. Future research can

improve on the apparent deficiencies.

First, the analyses are limited by the isolated nature of the data in terms of geography, time, and service.

Though the Columbus survey is a rich source of data on a variety of services, it is only a snapshot in time in one particular place. Future research should investi-

gate whether the findings hold up in other locations and over time. Second, the arguments laid out here about the types of service interactions are incomplete. The circumstances of consumption-elective versus coercive-are clearly part of the story, but not all of it. The analyses of the client service interaction suggest that citizens may be predisposed to judge service

quality negatively if the interaction is the result of a failure of the provider. Future research could examine these types of interactions in more detail. Third, the

analyses only investigate three services. Future research should examine other services to determine whether the results presented here are generalizable.

Finally, the empirical analyses are underspecified. The

analyses control for many important factors identified

by previous research, but not all. Perhaps the best next

step is to connect the arguments presented here-and the empirical test of these arguments-with the grow- ing research on expectations. Van Ryzin (2004; see also Van Ryzin et al. 2004), in particular, has done an

exceptional job of synthesizing private sector research on the expectation-disconfirmation model-in which satisfaction is a product of the gap between expected and actual service quality-and tailoring it to the

public sector context. The model presented here shares some similarities in that citizen evaluations of service

quality result from the interaction between predisposition based on the method of consumption and the actual service experience. Given the empirical support for both sets of arguments and the proximity of logic, this may be the most propitious next step in pulling together the thinking on citizen satisfaction.

Acknowledgments The data used in this article were provided by the Center for Survey Research and the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis at The Ohio State University. The author would like to thank Matt Potoski and the

three anonymous PAR reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes 1. The term "client" sometimes refers to third parties

who are not actual consumers of the service but

have a direct stake in the outcome (e.g., parents of

a mentally ill child). Here, it is used as Hyde

(1991) does to refer to limited-choice customers. I

would like to thank one of the three anonymous PAR reviewers for noting this distinction.

2. Simon's (1957) pioneering research on "satisficing"

implies that there are diminishing returns to choice

(i.e., individuals can't handle too many choices) but that some range of choice leads to desirable

outcomes. Recent research in psychology supports the implications of Simon's satisficing claim-

choosing among a finite range of options is gener-

ally preferable to no choice at all (see Schwartz

2004 for a review of the literature).

3. A description of the survey procedures can be

found at http://cura.osu.edu/news/curanews/

data/2002_Col_satisfact_rptAll.pdf. 4. Although income has been found to have an

impact on citizen evaluations of service quality, here, income is highly correlated with many other

independent variables, notably homeownership, so

it is not included in the analysis. 5. There are clearly endogeneity issues associated with

this variable. Quality of life may be a function of

service ratings. However, because of the aggregate nature of this variable, it includes important infor-

mation about overall community conditions. There

are instances in which respondents reported a high

quality of life but low ratings for some public services

(and vice versa). In this way, the variable controls for

aggregate community conditions. However, because

of the endogeneity issue, I am careful not to interpret the results for this variable in a linear, causal fashion.

6. Type I crime events include murder and nonnegli- gent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggra- vated assault, burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle

theft, and arson.

7. Service ratings may still be clustered by the sampling unit from which respondents were drawn-that is,

they may not be independent. Consequently, STATA's survey procedures were employed because

they allow for weighted data, as well as account for

the clustered nature of respondents, by essentially

weighting each observation (service-quality rating)

by the number of respondents from the stratum in

which the observation originated. 8. The number of respondents in the "direct recipients,

poor interaction" categories in table 3 is small

relative to the overall sample. One approach is to

treat these responses as outliers because they poten-

tially undermine the stability of the findings and are therefore candidates for exclusion. However, exclud-

ing these data points would bias the results (Belsley,




Kuh, and Welsch 1980; Leamer 1978). One of the

advantages of examining multiple services is that

even though the number of responses is low for each

service, the ratings are similar across services,

suggesting these are not outliers but rather represen- tative of an uncommon yet consistent phenomenon.

References Aizerman, Mark, and Fuad Aleskerov. 1995. Theory of

Choice. New York: North-Holland.

Arrow, Joseph Kenneth. 1951. Social Choice and

Individual Values. New York: Wiley. Becker, Gary S. 1976. The Economic Approach to Human

Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Belsley, David A., Edwin Kuh, and Roy E. Welsch.

1980. Regression Diagnostics: Identifying Influential Data and Sources of Collinearity. New York: Wiley.

Benson, Paul R. 1981. Political Alienation and Public

Satisfaction with Police Services. Pacific Sociological Review 24(1): 45-64.

Brown, Karin, and Philip B. Coulter. 1983. Subjective and Objective Measures of Police Service Delivery. Public Administration Review 43(1): 50-58.

Brudney, Jeffrey L., and Robert E. England. 1982.

Urban Policy Making and Subjective Service

Evaluations: Are They Compatible? Public

Administration Review 42(2): 127-35.

Cao, Liqun, James Frank, and Francis T. Cullen.

1996. Race, Community Context and Confidence

in the Police. American Journal ofPolice 15(1): 3-22.

Chipman, John S., Leonid Hurwicz, M. K. Richter, and Hugo Sonnenschein. 1971. Preferences, Utility, and Demand: A Minnesota Symposium. New York:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Christenson, James A., and Gregory S. Taylor. 1983.

The Socially Constructed and Situational Context for Assessment of Public Services. Social Science

Quarterly 64(2): 264-74.

Coupe, Tim, and Max Griffiths. 1999. The Influence

of Police Actions on Victim Satisfaction in

Burglary Investigations. International Journal ofthe

Sociology ofLaw 27(4): 413-31.

Davis, Karen, and Cathy Schoen. 1997. Managed Care, Choice, and Patient Satisfaction. the New York: Commonwealth Fund.

Dean, Deby. 1980. Citizen Ratings of the Police. Law

and Policy Quarterly 2: 445-71.

Fitzsimons, Gavan. 1995. Decision Satisfaction and

Its Consequences in a Constrained Choice

Environment: The Cost of Out-of-Stock. PhD

diss., Columbia University.

Furstenberg, Frank E, Jr., and Charles E Wellford.

1973. Calling the Police: The Evaluation of Police

Service. Law and Society Review 7(3): 393-406.

Glaser, Mark A., and John W Bardo. 1994. A Five-

Stage Approach for Improved Use of Citizen

Surveys in Public Investment Decisions. State and

Local Government Review 26(3): 161-72.

Glauser, Michael J., and William L. Tullar. 1985.

Communication Style of Police Officers and

Citizen Satisfaction with Officer-Citizen Telephone Conversations. Journal of Police Science and

Administration 13(1): 70-77.

Houthakker, H. S. 1950. Revealed Preference and the

Utility Function. Economica 17: 159-74.

Howard, John A., and Jagdish N. Sheth. 1969. The

Theory ofBuyer Behavior. New York: Wiley.

Hyde, A. C. 1991. Feedback from Customers, Clients,

and Captives. The Bureaucrat 20(4): 49-53.

Kahn, Barbara, William Moore, and Rashi Glazer.

1987. Experiments in Constrained Choice. Journal

of Consumer Research 14(1): 96-113.

Kelly, Janet. 2005. The Dilemma of the Unsatisfied

Customer in a Market Model of Public

Administration. Public Administration Review

65(1): 76-84.

Kelly, Janet, and David Swindell. 2002a. Service

Quality Variation across Urban Space: First Steps Toward a Model of Citizen Satisfaction. Journal of Urban Affairs 24(3): 271-88.

. 2002b. A Multiple-Indicator Approach to

Municipal Service Evaluation. Public


. 2003. The Case of the Inexperienced User.

American Review ofPublic Administration 33(1): 91-108.

Kreps, David. 1988. Notes on the Theory of Choice.

Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Kusow, Abdi M., Leon C. Wilson, and David E.

Martin. 1997. Determinants of Citizen Satisfaction

with the Police: The Effects of Residential

Location. Policing 20(4): 655-64.

Leamer, Edward. 1978. Specification Searches: Ad Hoc

Inference with Nonexperimental Data. New York:

Wiley. Licari, Michael, William McLean, and Tom Rice.

2005. The Condition of Community Streets and

Parks: A Comparison of Resident and Nonresident

Evaluations. Public Administration Review 65(3): 360-68.

Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service.

New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Lyons, W. E., David Lowery, and Ruth Hoogland

DeHoog. 1992. The Politics ofDissatisfaction: Citizens, Services, and Urban Institutions. Armonk,

NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Marlowe, Julia. 1985. Private versus Public Provision

of Refuse Removal Service. Urban Affairs Quarterly 20(3): 355-63.

Michalos, Alex C. 1983. Satisfaction and Happiness in a Rural Northern Resource Community. Social

Indicators Research 13(3): 225-52.

Miller, Thomas L., and Michelle A. Miller. 1991.

Standards of Excellence: U.S. Residents' Evaluation

of Local Government Services. Public





Miller, Thomas L., and Michelle A. Miller Kobayashi. 2000. Citizen Surveys: How to Do Them, How to

Use Them, What They Mean. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association.

Moore, Mark. 2002. Privatizing Public Management. In Market-Based Governance: Supply Side, Demand

Side, Upside, and Downside, edited by John D.

Donahue and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., 296-322.

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Mouritzen, Poul Erik. 1989. City Size and Citizens

Satisfaction: Two Competing Theories Revisited.

European Journal ofPolitical Research 17(6): 661-88.

Mowen, John C. 1993. Consumer Behavior.

New York: Macmillan.

Oliver, Richard L., and Wayne S. DeSarbo. 1988.

Response Determinants in Satisfaction Judgments.

Journal of Consumer Research 14(4): 495-507.

Osborne, David, and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is

Transforming the Public Sector. Reading, MA:

Addison-Wesley. Osborne, David, and Peter Plastrick. 2000. The

Reinventor's Fieldbook: Tools for Transforming Your

Government. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ostrom, Elinor, and Vincent Ostrom. 1977. Public

Goods and Public Choices. In Alternatives for

Delivering Public Services: Toward Improved

Performance, edited by E. S. Savas, 7-50.

Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Parks, Roger B. 1984. Linking Objective and

Subjective Measures of Performance. Public Administration Review 44(2): 118-27.

Poister, Theodore H., and James C. McDavid. 1978.

Victims' Evaluations of Police Performance. Journal

of Criminal Justice 6(2): 133-49.

Reisig, Michael D., and Roger B. Parks. 2000.

Experience, Quality of Life, and Neighborhood Context: A Hierarchical Analysis of Satisfaction

with Police. Justice Quarterly 17(3): 607-29.

Rich, Richard C. 1979. Neglected Issues in the Study of Urban Service Distributions: A Research

Agenda. Urban Studies 16(2): 143-56.

Richard, Michael A. 2000. A Discrepancy Model for

Measuring Consumer Satisfaction with

Rehabilitation Services. Journal ofRehabilitation 66(4): 37-43.

Samli, A. Coskun. 1998. Strategic Marketingfor Success in Retailing. Westport, CT: Quorum.

Samuelson, Paul. 1938. A Note on the Pure Theory of

Consumers' Behavior. Economica 5: 61-71.

- . 1947. Foundations ofEconomic Analysis.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Schneider, Mark, Paul Teske, and Melissa Marschall.

2000. Choosing Schools: Consumer Choice and the

Quality ofAmerican Schools. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Schuman, H., and B. Gruenberg. 1972.

Dissatisfaction with City Services: Is Race an

Important Factor? In People and Politics in Urban

Society, edited by Harlan Hahn, 369-92. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Schwartz, Barry. 2004. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. New York: Ecco.

Sen, Amartya. 1971. Quasi-Transitivity, Rational

Choice and Collective Decisions. Review of Economic Studies 36(3): 381-93.

- . 1973. Behaviour and the Concept of

Preference. Economica 40: 241-59.

Simon, Herbert A. 1957. Administrative Behavior: A

Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative

Organizations. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan.

Skogan, Wesley G. 1978. Citizen Satisfaction with

Police Services: Individual and Contextual Effects.

Special issue, Police Studies 7: 480-86.

Smith, Paul E., and Richard O. Hawkins. 1973.

Victimization, Types of Citizen-Police Contacts, and Attitudes toward the Police. Law and Society Review 8(1): 135-52.

Stein, Robert M. 1990. Urban Alternatives: Public and

Private Markets in the Provision ofLocal Services.

Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2000. Economics of the Public Sector.

3rd ed. New York: W.W.

Norton.

Stipak, Brian. 1979. Citizen Satisfaction with Urban

Services: Potential Misuse as a Performance Indicator.

Public Administration Review 39(1): 46-52.

1980. Local Governments Use of Citizen

Surveys. Public Administration Review 40(5): 521-25.

Swindell, David, and Janet Kelly. 2000. Linking Citizen

Satisfaction Data to Performance Measures. Public

Performance and Management Review 24(1): 30-52.

Thompson, Lyke. 1997. Citizen Attitudes about

Service Delivery Modes. Journal of Urban Affairs

19(3): 291-302.

Ullman, Ralph, Jerrold W Hill, Eileen C. Scheye, and

Randall K. Spoeri. 1997. Satisfaction and Choice: A

View from the Plans. Health Afairs 16(3): 209-17.

Van Ryzin, Gregg G. 2004. Expectations, Performance, and Citizen Satisfaction with Urban

Services. Journal ofPolicy Analysis and Management 23(3): 433-48.

Van Ryzin, Gregg G., Douglas Muzzio, Stephen Immerwhar, Lisa Gulick, and Eve Martinez. 2004.

Drivers and Consequences of Citizen Satisfaction:

An Application of the American Customer

Satisfaction Index Model to New York City. Public Administration Review 64(3): 331-341.

Van Slyke, David, and Christine Roch. 2004. What Do

They Know and Who Do They Hold Accountable?

Citizens in the Government-Nonprofit Contracting

Relationship. JournalofPublicAdministration Research and Theory 14(2): 191-209.

Watson, Douglas J., Robert J. Juster, and Gerald W.

Johnson. 1991. Institutionalized Use of Citizen

Surveys in the Budgetary and Policy-Making Process: A Small City Case Study. Public Administration Review 51(3): 232-39.




Appendix: The 2002 Survey of Columbus Residents The following questions from the 2002 survey of Columbus residents were used to construct the dependent variables and the quality of service interaction

independent variables for each of the three services.

Dependent Variables: Citizen Evaluations of Service Quality On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning "very poor quality" and 10 meaning "very high quality," how would you rate the quality of the following services in the city of Columbus? Remember you may use 1, 10, or any number in between. [Note: The variable refuse- collection rating is an average of C, D, and E.]

A. The city's recreational programs B. Police services C. Weekly garbage collection D. Bulk trash collection E. Yard waste collection

Independent Variables: Quality of Service Interaction

Recreation program quality. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning "very poor quality" and 10 meaning "very high quality," how would you rate the quality of the program? Remember you may use 1, 10, or any

number in between. [Note: Respondents were only asked this question about the specific programs they indicated they participated in.]

A. Arts and crafts B. Youth sports C. Adult sports D. Aquatics or swimming E. Outdoor education

E Senior adult programs G. Golf

Police stop quality. And was that person treated with fairness and courtesy? [Note: Respondents were only asked this question if they indicated that they, or any member of their household, had been stopped by the police during the previous 12 months.]

A. Yes B. No

Refuse call quality. Were you treated with fairness and courtesy by city personnel when you called about the problem? [Note: Respondents were only asked this question if they indicated that they had called the city about a problem with their trash collection.]

A. Yes B. No

Attention Instructors

Have you reminded your students lately of the value of ASPA membership? Urge them to visit the website www.aspanet.org and take advantage of the best bargain available to people in our field.

572 Public Administration Review * May I June 2007



Coercion versus Choice: Citizen Evaluations of Public Service Quality across Methods of Consumption

Documents

Transcript of Coercion versus Choice: Citizen Evaluations of Public Service Quality across Methods of Consumption